monly bold cliffs, shaded by pine forests of luxuriant growth; here the villages are few in number, and are situated high above the stream.

The vine has often been planted, but does not thrive, owing to the periodical rains, which are partially felt in this valley, destroying the fruit before it comes to maturity.

The chief place of note is Sungla, containing about fifty families, the great mart for traders from Gurhwal and Chooara. Grain of all kinds, and articles from the plains, are the imports, and salt from Chinese Tartary is almost the only export. Formerly wool was taken to Gurhwal, but since the British government has begun to purchase it, the Koonawurees find it more profitable to carry it to Rampoor.

Kumroo, comprehending upwards of forty families, is of some consequence; there is a fort situated on a perpendicular rock, and a Deota, named Budreenath, one of the greatest in Busehur. The temple is said to be very magnificent, and is crowned with a ball of pure gold weighing fifteen or twenty pounds.

TEEDOONG.

This is without exception the most rugged glen I have seen; its length, from the the Sutluj as far up as it is capable of cultivation, is fourteen miles, and the highest village, Charung, must be nearly 12,000 feet; I did not visit it, but stopped at another place nearly two miles lower down, which was 11,700 feet. In all there are three villages, none of which are large. The cultivation is very small poor, in

patches, and for twelve miles the cliffs on either side subtend an angle of 60° or 70°, and menace the traveller with destruction; they rise in the most hideous shapes, and are really frightful to behold; they are generally naked, but here and there a few dwarf pines, mountain ashes, gooseberries and juniper bushes find a scanty nourishment.

The rocks are hollowed out into innumerable caves, some of them capable of conveniently sheltering fifty or sixty people; and the river, whose fall is 300 feet per mile, breaks on the scattered fragments with a deafening noise, reverberated tenfold from the surrounding caverns.

DARBOONG.

This valley runs N. W. and S. E., and is only inhabited for eight miles; the upper part is uniformly craggy on both sides. The Darboong river has its source amongst the vast fields of snow near the Manerung Pass, and it rapidly swells in its descent to Ropa; there is little wood thus far, the trees being stunted pines and birches, which last here attain the immense elevation of 14,000 feet. The rocks are almost all blue and marled limestone, and quartz, and contain a good deal of copper ore. Some of the mines were formerly productive, but they have lately been abandoned, from there being nobody here that understands the business.

This del comprises the district of Gungel, in which there are six villages, besides many hamlets. It is bounded on the N. E. and S. W. by ranges almost 15,000 feet in height; and for four or five miles it presents an entire sheet of rich cultivation,

diversified by bowers of apples, and apricots, and thriving vineyards, which in this valley flourish at 9,500 feet, and are watered by abundant placid streams.

The town of Soongnum contains seventy-one families, a convent of thirty-two nuns, and several lamas; the situation is charming, and the vines, fruit trees, and gardens, have a fine effect; peaks of 17,000 and 18,000 feet without snow, are visible at no great distance, and notwithstanding the altitude of Soongnum, the summer temperature is 70° of Fahrenheit.

The above are the principal valleys, and some of the others are the Taglakhar, Hocho, Pejur, Kozhang, Mulgoon, Yoola, and Wungur. With the exception of the last, none of the rest contain more than a single village, and they are too unimportant to deserve particular notice, being almost wholly uncultivated. They are overhung by dark woods near the Sutluj; but farther up there are rich grazing lands covered with flocks.

The dell of the Wungur includes the district of Wangpo, containing seven paltry villages. A very rapid torrent rushes through it, and near its union with the Sutluj it forms a succession of waterfalls, and dashes against the huge rocks in its bed with a noise like thunder, throwing the spray in sparkling showers to an astonishing height.

The small lateral valleys are numerous, and it is in them one finds the greatest variety of beautiful scenery. The prospects are not so grand as in the deeper glens, but they are much more diversified, and there is not such a degree of sameness for so great a space. On one side are shady copses and

deep forests of evergreens, overtopped by bare crags ending in snowy summits, and now and then you meet with a mural precipice of several hundred feet, over which a cataract discharges its spangled stream.

On the other side again, the woods are not so thick, and the ground presents a carpet, embellished with many sorts of lovely wild flowers, of the most gaudy tints and delightful fragrance; this place is famed for the excellence of pasture, and here are browsing numerous herds of cattle.

The rivulets in these valleys have just as varied an appearance; in one place the torrent leaps from rock to rock in a series of cascades, or where the declivity is more gentle, it expands into sheets of limpid water, and now and then passes under dark vaults, whose lower surfaces are formed of thousands of sparkling icicles, of various forms, clear as rock crystal, from which showers are constantly dripping.

RIVERS.

The principal river in Koonawur is the Sutluj, which flows through it from one end to the other; the chief branch, or that which has the longest course, issues from Rawun Rudd Lake, better known by the name of Lanka, or Langa-Cho, the last word meaning a sheet of water. It runs within the Himalaya mountains for 280 miles, and the first part of its course is nearly W. N. W. for 200 miles, to clear the heads of the Ganges and its tributary streams; it then enters Koonawur, and winds considerably, generally in a South-western direction, but it often runs due South, and near

where it leaves the Himalaya, its course is West for a long way. Within Koonawur its length is about eighty miles, after which it still flows W. S. W. for 160 more through the hills, and before it enters the plains it makes several bold sweeps, and penetrates the low sandstone range at Roopoor. It washes the hill towns of Rampoor, Bilaspoor, and Makhowal, and its course from Roopoor to its junction with the Beah or Beas, at Hurreeke Puttun, twelve miles above Ferozpoor, is about 130 miles in a south-westerly direction. Its whole length thus far, is 570 miles, 440 of which lie within the mountains.

The late Lieutenant McCartney, to whom geographers are greatly indebted for much valuable information contained in the map annexed to Mr. Elphinstone's Caubul, was the first person to put us right regarding the Indus, which he ascertained ran past the capital of Ludak, and Roodok, a place of some note, famed for its lakes of salt and borax, half way between Leh and Garoo. Mr. Moorcroft subsequently found out that the stream which issues from Rawun Rudd is the Sutluj, and the one that washes Garoo or Gartop, which my informants call Eekung-Choo, is a branch of the Indus; and all this agrees exactly with my enquiries. European geographers, until very lately, brought both the Sutluj and Indus into the Ganges, which they made to wind among snowy mountains for 700 or 800 miles; and this they seem to have done without a sufficient reason, since the Hindoos always asserted its springs were at the foot of the Himalaya range.

Major Rennell says the river that runs from Lan